Possible Solutions for Hazardous
Waste
Basically, there are two approaches to addressing the challenges of
hazardous
waste. One is waste management, and the other is waste prevention.
Waste Management: Minimizing the
Impact
Waste management is based on the premise that a high volume of waste is
the unavoidable result of our modern lifestyle and of economic
development.
The objective is therefore to manage waste and minimize its impact.
Waste-management
strategies include burying or incinerating waste or exporting it to some
other state or country.
Waste Prevention: Minimizing the
Volume
Preventing waste is a kind of "front-end" approach; it views
waste
either as material that should not be created in the first place or as
a potential resource that can be used as raw material for another
process.
The fundamental objectives of this approach are to reduce the use of
new
raw materials and energy and to recycle waste products back into usable
resources.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, the waste-prevention
approach should have the following hierarchy of goals:
1. Reduce waste and pollution.
2. Reuse as many things as possible.
3. Recycle and compost as much waste as possible.
4. Chemically or biologically treat or incinerate waste that can't be
reduced,
reused, recycled, or composted.
5. After the first four goals have been met, bury what is left in
state-of-the-art landfills or above-ground vaults.
.
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